


Painting Bars On The Walls

by ReoPlusOne



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, Falling In Love, M/M, Prison, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-03-31 18:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3988588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReoPlusOne/pseuds/ReoPlusOne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alfred and Arthur met and fell in love in the most unlikely of places.</p><p>USUK.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Painting Bars On The Walls

Nobody else could have turned a prison cell into a home, but they did.

Alfred had shown up with a frown and pleas that he was innocent.  “Of course you are,” Arthur said with a scowl, “Everyone else here is, too.  That poor fellow over there accidentally tripped and fell into a girl, don’t you know?” Their first night had started with a fist appropriately shoved into Arthur’s face because his mouth was unable to stay silent.  

Perhaps he was just bitter and sad because of his own sentencing.  Arthur was, as he described himself with a strange sense of pride, “The king of losing things”, which was all well and good unless the things you lost ended up being the paperwork for a rented car.  He’d apparently been at his brother’s house searching for it when they came to take him away.  It normally wouldn’t be that big of a deal, he explained, but coupled with a series of thefts from his childhood, early and then… mid twenties, (“it wasn’t a money thing,” he’d mumbled and Alfred had nodded as if he knew what he was talking about), it was just enough to get him tossed in prison.

“So what are you _innocent_ of,” Arthur had asked, smiling through his lunch one day.

“My family’s never done so well, and that’s fine,” He said, and everyone else at the table chuckled with sympathy, “But damn it, we always make sure our pets have enough to eat.”

“Pets?”

“Well yeah, my — my dogs.  I didn’t have any dog food, they were hungry —”

“You’re _here_ because you stole _dog food_?”

“And then ran from the cops, yeah…”

“Why the hell did you run, man? You know that adds like five years.”

“Well I had to get it _home_ to ‘em for them to eat it!” Arthur remembered laughing at him, but that night in the showers, when the descent upon the littlest, poshest one in the bunch began — Alfred stood up for him.  He got a black eye for his trouble, but that night when he slipped into their shared cell Arthur spared him a cigarette as his own little way of saying thank you.

As they both worked hard to clear their own separate names, those names became strangely intertwined.  When Alfred’s brother brought his dogs to visit (“Justice” and “Freedom”, Arthur had held his head and groaned) it was unspoken that the _two_ of them would visit, of course — what a strange way for Arthur to meet his boyfriend’s family.

The Brit kicked his smoking habit at Alfred’s request (“you gotta be around a long time, so I can keep annoying you, alright?”) and sold his cigarettes for a plant in a pot to be kept by the window of their cell.  At first he had complained that it was the stupidest trade he’d ever made, but then it sprouted sweet cherry tomatoes, and it wasn’t so bad.  A handful of them was worth a lot in the swap room.

Alfred got out three months before Arthur did.  Though he’d never tell him, he spent it at various 24-hr diners and benches, sleeping, reading newspapers and counting down the days until the next visiting day; Matt, though he was still angry with him, let him shower and do laundry at his place.

The day Arthur got out was the day before Independence Day.  Alfred waited, hair still wet from the shower and his dogs on a leash — and tried to be polite and not eyeball the oddly-expensive car that had been there when he arrived.  

Arthur practically tackled him, kissed him until he was dizzy, and gestured at the car with its door held open by a snooty looking butler.  “Go on and get in.”

— Apparently the string of thefts really _wasn’t_ a money thing; Arthur’s family was rich enough to afford a personal limo, butlers, and yes — a huge bathtub for them to make out in.

Arthur taught him how to dance in the giant room that was theirs, Freedom and Justice ate from customized dog bowls, and with Arthur’s reluctant okay, Alfred painted black bars on the windows of their house.

 _So they could never forget their roots_ , he said.  



End file.
